There is a passion for medicine and healthcare that exists through multiple generations in the Rao family. Megha Rao, MD, and Nakul Rao, MD, were touched by that love the day they were born.
The two siblings were both born at Saint Peter’s University Hospital, part of the Saint Peter’s Healthcare System. Their aunt Vatsala Rao, MD, an ob-gyn at the time, delivered both babies, as well as their younger sister
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Today, Dr. Megha Rao is an internist and primary care physician, while Dr. Nakul Rao is a vascular surgeon. Both work in the same healthcare system where they were born—and where their father, Niranjan Rao, MD, is chief medical officer and also a vascular surgeon
“You have a little sense of pride that you get to work with your family,” Dr. Megha Rao said. “It’s unique. It’s something most don’t get to experience.”
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Family inspiration
Dr. Vatsala Rao actually was the person who inspired Dr. Niranjan Rao to pursue a medical career. The two grew up in India, but when Dr. Vatsala Rao immigrated to the United States to become a doctor, she set a goal for her younger brother to do the same.
Rao family
“My sister was the mentor for me,” Dr. Niranjan Rao said. “We had a big age difference, and she was almost like a second mother to me.”
Dr. Niranjan Rao completed his residency in general surgery at the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia and a fellowship in vascular surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. He wanted to find a job in the Midwest, and as luck would have it, an opening appeared at Saint Peter’s
Before long, Dr. Niranjan Rao and his wife’s family began to grow. He looked for any opportunity to spend time with his children, which often meant taking them with him to the hospital, where he’d take them to make rounds or let them relax in the doctor’s lounge.
“I would bribe them and say there’s food, there are donuts, orange juice, and things like that,” Dr. Niranjan Rao said. “They were born and raised here.”
Dr. Megha Rao remembered growing up at the hospital—and being put to work, at least by her aunt
“Filing charts, alphabetizing charts and lining them up, things like that,” Dr. Megha Rado said. “She would pay $20 for the day and for us it was a deal.”
Learning the family practice
While Dr. Megha Rao joked about being put to work as a child, the most important thing she learned back then was about patient care.
“The patient-doctor dynamic, the trust, the gratitude, and the interaction has always stood out to me,” she said. “The trust and the gratitude that patients have, it’s something that I think is very unique to being a physician in general. To be able to create a relationship like that with your patient takes a lot of work.”
Dr. Nakul Rao agreed. He vividly remembers going home as a child to routinely find boxes of cookies given to his dad as a thank you from patients
“In medicine, there’s a level of responsibility … that you’re given when it comes to the care of a patient,” Dr. Nakul Rao said. “Our dad taught us a lot about how to be a physician and about the responsibility as a physician.”
From left to right: Megha Rao, MD, Niranjan Rao, MD, and Nakul Rao, MD
A reality that seemed unthinkable
Dr. Megha Rao always remembers wanting to work in healthcare, whether it was in physical therapy, or nursing, or as a physician assistant. Because of that, she figured her career and her father’s would be intertwined. But she never imagined she’d call him a colleague
Currently, Dr. Megha Rao works at Saint Peter’s Physician Associates at Piscataway in New Jersey. She is fluent in English, Spanish and Kannada, and she prides herself on her accessibility to patients from various cultural backgrounds
Like his sister, Dr. Nakul Rao also envisioned working in healthcare, but he never imagined he’d be working alongside family
“There are so many variables, where you go to school, where you do your training, you just don’t know where you may end up,” he said. “It was always a dream to be able to work together, I just didn’t know if it was going to be a possibility.”
Being in the same field of vascular surgery as his dad, Dr. Nakul Rao has gotten a unique perspective of who his father is as a person and as a doctor. Patients who have seen Dr. Niranjan Rao for decades are now starting to see Dr. Nakul Rao, who sees that reality as added pressure and responsibility—pressure and responsibility that he is proud to take on
“What he’s doing is the goal for me,” Dr. Nakul Rao said. “For me to be able to say 30 or 40 years from now that I’ve operated here, here, and here on this patient, and they’re doing well, they’re happy, that’s the goal.”
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Continuing to learn
While Dr. Nakul Rao continues to learn from his dad, Dr. Niranjan Rao finds himself learning more and more from his son on a daily basis. Recently, a former patient who underwent five procedures from Dr. Niranjan Rao over the course of 20-plus years needed another surgery. This time it was Dr. Nakul Rao who performed the procedure
“He had a new problem that Nick was able to treat with the most modern technique that I don’t know,” Dr. Niranjan Rao said. “That’s handing the baton, and that’s the legacy for the patient. He was thrilled.”
So was Dr. Nakul Rao
“Training has changed significantly. A lot of what we do is technique that is so different now,” Dr. Nakul Rao said. “So, I’m able to offer stuff that’s kind of the newer wave, but there’s still a traditional old way of doing things, like open surgery, which we still do in training. It’s just not as frequent. But being able to have both for patients is really good.”
“Really good” is an understatement to how Dr. Niranjan Rao feels seeing two of his children working in the same practice as him (his third child, Seema, is a senior line producer at Sony Pictures Entertainment). Dr. Niranjan Rao makes it a point to have lunch with Dr. Megha Rao and Dr. Nakul Rao on a regular basis.
When he sees either—or both—of them, his pride is hard to hide
“This is not an opportunity that every parent has,” Dr. Niranjan Rao said. “I like to see them happy, flourishing both professionally and from a social standpoint. It’s great.
“We go to hospital events, and it makes me really proud. They’re good kids. They were good kids to begin with, and they’re good kids now,” he added
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